Seniors use computers to challenge minds

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Updated 12:13 am, Saturday, March 9, 2013

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

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Ruth Hutton, 90, likes watching YouTube and playing Mahjong on her iPad at the Sunny View Retirement Center in Cupertino. The Center offers an iPad training class and lends out iPads to its residents in the hopes they will stay connected with family and friends and use the technology to stay mentally sharp.

Ruth Hutton, 90, likes watching YouTube and playing Mahjong on her iPad at the Sunny View Retirement Center in Cupertino. The Center offers an iPad training class and lends out iPads to its residents in the

Former IBM employee Bob Brenner, 75, uses his iPad for communicating with his family and keeping up with the news.

Former IBM employee Bob Brenner, 75, uses his iPad for communicating with his family and keeping up with the news.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Seniors use computers to challenge minds

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The senior citizens gathered around the table to talk about how they use iPads could have been a bunch of kids.

Sure, there were some differences - 78-year-old Pat Hassett was forced to take a break from her tablet after developing tendinitis from playing too much computer solitaire. But generally, they gabbed about their favorite apps and being able to Skype with a relative on the other side of the country. And when one person started speaking, the others quickly zoned out into the world of Facebook and pictures of grandchildren sitting in their hands.

The Sunny View Retirement Community in Cupertino began an iPad program in 2011, with the hopes of keeping residents connected to their families and the world outside the community and sustaining brain health.

No scientific proof

Some residents said using the tablets helps keep them sharp, and the community also has special touch-screen computers where residents can play comprehension and memory games produced by a company called Dakim.

"You gotta keep thinking, or you might get dull," said Ruth Hutton, who turns 90 in November and is expecting her daughter to throw her a party.

The idea that challenging one's mind - whether by playing a computer memory game, working on a crossword puzzle from the newspaper or reading a book - can keep it in shape is a common thought, although some doctors said science has not fully backed it up. That's not to say exercising the brain is harmful. But researchers have not definitively found that tools like brain fitness tests can improve or preserve cognitive skills used in daily life.

"The science does tend to support it - I'm not saying it contradicts it - but it's not at a level that supports it strongly," said Dr. Victor Henderson, a Stanford professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

Despite the uncertainty, doctors said they still recommend mental exercise to their aging patients, along with physical exercise and healthy eating. But studies so far have been observational as opposed to experimental, meaning it is harder for researchers to draw firm conclusions.

Research focused specifically on brain games on a computer or tablet has not produced conclusive findings, either.

"I've been disappointed that I haven't seen stronger results coming out of some of these computerized interventions," Henderson said.

Biological benefits?

Scientists are also unsure what occurs on a biochemical level as seniors challenge their minds. If in fact such activities are beneficial, then perhaps they are building stronger connections between neurons or piecing together alternative routes for information to travel on as other pathways in the brain wither.

One way iPads could help seniors living in a retirement community is to improve their level of socialization and communication, said Dr. Marci Teresi, the medical director of the memory clinic at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center. Keeping in touch via Skype, for example, could help sustain conversational skills and prevent problems with seclusion from developing.

"It does seem that when seniors become more isolated, there are issues of loneliness," Teresi said. "They can develop depression, and that can affect their memory and cognitive function."

There is stronger evidence that physical exercise could improve cognitive skills, doctors said. Studies in animals have demonstrated that certain neurochemicals that could have a protective or beneficial effect on brain function are released after exercise.

The joys of the iPad

No matter the potential brain health benefits of the iPads, the residents at Sunny View seem to be enjoying the tablets. They look up restaurant ratings on Yelp, and some of them recently used an iPad to figure out what a water chestnut looks like as it is growing.

"It looks like onions growing in water - I'll be darned," Hutton said.

The center has iPads for the residents to check out, but a number of children and grandchildren have started to give their family members the tablets.

"I would've never bought it myself, but my son-in-law thought I should have one, so he bought it for me for Christmas," said Jane Winby, 86.

But there was one thing that at least some of the seniors did not seem to want to find on their iPad.

"I don't want to read today's paper on here," Hutton said, pointing to the iPad. She raised her arms in front of her and said, "I want to hold it up here."